


Merry Grinchmas

by F-117 Nighthawk (F117_Nighthawk)



Series: Hell is Anything but Blue [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Tree, Cold Weather, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Ghosts, as Tony calls them, bad christmas jokes, it's also Christmas grinching a bit, old shitty cap movies, this is the crackiest thing i have ever written and i love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F117_Nighthawk/pseuds/F-117%20Nighthawk
Summary: Tony and Pepper don't particularly care for Christmas, especially after The Mandarin Incident.So of course Tony volunteers himself to go solo on possibly the weirdest mission Fury has ever assigned the Avengers. In the middle of a blizzard and negative temperatures.





	Merry Grinchmas

**Author's Note:**

> The only explanation for this is I thought it was funny.

“Good morning, Sir. It is December 25th, time is 0922, temperature 0℉. It is cloudy with a nor’easter set to move in about noon.”

Tony rolled over and smushed his face between his and Pepper’s pillows. He could feel the cold in the arc reactor already, despite the state of the art heating that ran in Stark Tower. He was not moving from his blankets if he could help it. “I’m not moving, J.”

“As you wish, Sir, however I believe that the team would appreciate it if you at least made an appearance at the festivities today.”

“Nope.”

There was a moment where everything was silent and still. Then he felt Pepper roll onto her side and snake her arms around him. “Morning, Tony.”

“Hi.”

They lay there as they woke up fully, hovering in the Extremis connection. Until Tony shifted and Pepper’s arm touched the arc reactor. “Jesus,” she yelped, moving her arm away from it. “That’s freezing, are you okay?”

He blinked at her. It was cold, yes, but it didn’t hurt yet so it couldn’t be  _ that _ cold. “Little cold, yes,” he admitted to her, “but it doesn’t hurt so it can’t be that bad? It’s inevitably going to be worse once the storm rolls in, but, for now it’s fine.”

She lifted the covers and swung her legs over the side as he whined at the loss of warmth. “Preventative measures time. JARVIS, are our warmest sweats clean?”

“Top left drawer of the closet, Ma’am.”

Tony curled up on his side and pulled the blanket in again, trapping as much warmth as he could. He threw them over his head as she walked into the closet. A minute later he heard her laugh lightly and she poked his head. “Come on, get these on.”

He grumbled but moved to covers to peek at her. “Cold.”

“Yes and you’ll be warmer with your huge fluffy sweatpants, a long-sleeve insulated shirt, and your Iron Man sweatshirt that I still don’t understand how you convinced the company to make.”

He raised an eyebrow at that as she was wearing her own Iron Man sweatshirt. She rolled her eyes and tossed the clothes onto him. “Come on, get those on and we can go put in an appearance for the team.”

He picked the clothes off his face and started changing into them, but made a face at her. “Pepper, they’re gonna be all “festive” and shit and I’d really rather not deal with that.”

“Steve is the only one who is religious.”

“Christmas is no longer just a Christian holiday. Consumerism kinda ruined that.”

“Okay I’ll give you that. Look, I don’t like Christmas any more than you do, especially after last year, but if you don’t want the team yelling to be let into our floor or the shop later it’s best to give them what they want now.”

He pulled the hoodie over his head and glared at the ceiling. “Fine, I guess. After that, can we go down to the shop and watch old shitty Cap movies?”

She snorted. “As long as we watch the one with Hedy Lamarr as Peggy.”

“Deal.”

 

Entirely too long (read: an hour) later they were comfortably situated on the couch in the workshop. Dum-E and U were puttering around behind them, occasionally asking about something in the movie over Extremis. All in all it was a nice, quiet, and very warm Christmas Day.

Until JARVIS paused the third movie with an uncharacteristically hesitant “.....Sir.”

Tony frowned. He could feel JARVIS holding something back from Extremis, like he was trying to hide something. “Yes, J?”

“....This might be wiser to bring to Captain Rogers, but I am hesitant to interrupt the others’ festivities for something of this nature.”

Ah. That meant it was Avengers related. “What is it,” he sighed, looking mournfully at the pile of blankets he was going to have to move out of.

“The Rockefeller Christmas Tree seems to have become mobile and semi-sentient. It is not seemingly hostile and only wants to move around and look through windows at displays of gingerbread houses.”

He stared into the distance as Pepper smothered laughter. “What the  _ hell.” _

“Director Fury was wondering if the team could handle it as you are closer than his nearest SHIELD team and he has, I quote, “no motherfuckin’ clue how to convince a sentient flying Christmas Tree to leave town.””

Pepper burst into full blown laughter and Tony mournfully pushed the blankets off. “Boot up the Mark XLII. Don’t bother alerting the team, I’m sure I can handle a flying tree.”

“Sir, I am hesitant to send you out in the XLII in the current weather. I really believe Captain Rogers would be a better choice for this.”

“Let him enjoy his Christmas, JARVIS.”

“I’m going to say I agree with JARVIS on this one, despite the fact that I know you’re going to go anyway. It’s currently -15℉ and there’s a blizzard.”

“Okay but, and this is a good reason, Thor is off on Asgard for their winter celebration and thus I am the only one on the team that can fly. It’s a flying tree. Quod erat demonstrandum.”

Pepper sighed but waved him towards the suit assembly station. “I don’t see how that’s a proof of anything but I can’t exactly stop you.”

“You could join JARVIS as mission control if that would help.”

“I think I will. J, make sure you keep the heat up in the suit.”

He rolled his eyes and lifted his arms so the XLII could finish clicking into place. Once it did and Extremis told him that all systems were operational, he activated the thrusters and shot up through the tower and out the roof. He was immediately confronted with strong winds and so much snow it was hard to see more than a few meters in front of his face. He switched the HUD so that it showed scan layers in infrared and other wavelengths. It extended his view range, but not by more than a block. “Where’s the tree currently, JARVIS? Oh, wait, I see it.”

There was a commotion in Bryant Park and a distinctly huge, garishly decorated, floating christmas tree above it. He flew over and hovered over Salesforce Tower. The tree did indeed seem to be looking around at gingerbread houses. It floated in an awkward way, tip first, like it had a thruster on the bottom of its stand. It vaguely reminded him of a cross between the TARDIS and R2-D2. 

“Scan it, J, see if there’s anything obvious that is causing this.”

“Nothing visible to the scanners, Sir.”

“Any ideas on how to handle it?” Pepper’s voice came over the comm. 

“Drag it away? Grab it by the tip and haul ass? I think I could hold its weight. Why exactly does it  _ need _ to be dealt with anyway? Can’t Fury just let a tree float around in peace? It’s not like it’s the weirdest thing that’s occured in the past several years.”

“It is scaring civilians, despite being non-hostile.”

“So what am  _ I _ supposed to do, talk to it?”

“You could try that, yeah,” Pepper interrupted.

“That’s never going to work.”

“Oh just try it, Tony.”

He swooped down and landed in the snow next to the tree. It turned around so its tip was pointing at him and he had the distinct feeling of being watched. He stared up at it. “Uhm, hi, uh, tree, could you perhaps float back to Rockefeller Center? Or maybe, I dunno, float out to the woods and find yourself some sentient-tree friends?”

“But the woods does not have any gingerbread houses?”

“.........oh my god it’s a fucking talking tree. A talking, gingerbread house obsessed, floating tree.” He could feel and hear Pepper laughing. “Oh come on, Pepper, you wanna pull out RESCUE and deal with this?”

“Oh no, this is hilarious, please continue.”

He zoomed in on the tree with the helmet and wished there wasn’t a blizzard in the way. “Do you... have a mouth? Or eyes? Or are you like, communicating via telepathy or something? Why do you want to look at gingerbread houses so bad?”

“I would like to live in one. Sadly, all the ones I have found are too small.”

Tony blinked. “You...do realize that you’re a twenty three meter tall  _ tree. _ And, uh, gingerbread is not exactly the best construction material. I mean, Bruce and I could probably whip up some type of gingerbread that serves better as walls but you’d still need wood or something to be the framework and if you used say cement instead of icing it’d stay together better although in my experience the icing on gingerbread houses is just as strong if more brittle than cement-”

“Tony, you’re rambling.”

“Right yes anyway I guess if you wanted to live in a gingerbread house I could build you one? But it would take a while and I have.... no idea where we’d put it. That’s a large house.”

“Oh, this isn’t my normal form. This is just a manifestation of myself that I have chosen in order to explore. I do acknowledge that perhaps it was not my best choice.”

“So you’re an interdimensional being?”

“I believe you would call me a ghost.”

“Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Future?”

“Present.”

He smiled at the joke. This was just getting weirder and weirder. “Okay, well, could you find yourself a different host body to go exploring in?”

“That seems to be the wisest choice, yes.”

He had a sudden idea. “Here, I’ll go get you a gingerbread person. Nat made gingerbread men and women, it’s a little hard to make explicitly nonbinary gingerbread people because society sucks that way but I think we decorated at least a few in those colors. Do you care which one?”

“Two gingerbread men, one for me and my husband. The whole reason I want to live in a gingerbread house it it’s easily customisable to be very gay. Rainbows and everything. 

“As a fellow queer, I get that. I’ll be right back.” With that he shot off towards Avengers Tower again. He quickly arrived on the landing pad and walked into the common room.

The other Avengers froze when they saw him suited up (and tracking snow all over the carpet, oh well). “Tony?”

“Everything’s fine, just a floating, possessed by a ghost, Christmas tree. I need two gingerbread man cookies. Rainbow if we have them.”

Natasha somehow managed to find two rainbow gingerbread men and calmly handed them to him, while the rest of the Avengers stared at him, obviously waiting for a more detailed explanation. He gave Cap a quick salute and took off, the cookies safely in a small padded compartment in his leg. He shivered even in the suit, suddenly very aware of the cold after being inside for a minute.

“Alright, here you go,” he said after landing back in Bryant park, pulling the cookies from his leg.

The tree started falling from the air. “Ah! A-a-a, put the tree back first, please?”

The tree stopped falling and maneuvered itself back to Rockefeller Center. He breathed a sigh of relief and followed it. The tree landed back approximately where it had been, maybe a meter or two off. One of the cookies in his hand came to life. “Ah, this is indeed much better. I am able to fit in the houses now. Tell me, which one is the best?”

Tony stared at the gingerbread man. “Uhm, I don’t think I’m the best judge of that.”

“Tell him to take one of the ones in Trump Tower. They don’t deserve to have all that gingerbread.”

He sent an agreement over Extremis and pointed the gingerbread man at Trump Tower as a SHIELD extraction squad showed up. The leader jumped out of the car and walked over to him. The Agent was visibly shivering in the blizzard. “Iron Man, Sir. Agent Saunders. We’re here to collect and clean up.”

Tony held out the other gingerbread man. The SHIELD Agent stared at it for a moment, then glanced up at his helmet. “Sir?”

“It’s for the ghost’s husband. I told the ghost to take the gingerbread house from Trump Tower. Apparently he wants to live in one.”

The Agent gently took the gingerbread man. “What, exactly, do we need to collect?”

“That, the floating gingerbread man, and whichever gingerbread house he picks out. The tree’s fine, maybe a little out of place.” Extremis suddenly blinked an alert light on his HUD: he had been outside in low temperatures for a while without adequate protection. Well, that explained the dull ache in his chest that he was sure if he was out here any longer was going to become crippling. “Are you done with me because I’d like to get back to what I was doing.”

“Yes, Sir. Merry Christmas.”

He resisted the urge to huff at the assumption. “Happy Holidays, Agent,” he said, and took off through the blizzard. He zipped up to the landing pad and down to the shop, landing on the assembly pad. “Jesus it’s cold.”

Pepper was standing next to the pad, a heated blanket in her hands. “You really need to figure out how to fix the insulation or switch to a different assembly method.”

He shivered as the suit disassembled and flew back to the Hall of Armor. “I’m so close to fixing the insulation. I need to run a new material by Bruce that I think will work. The fact that the XVII was never actually completed beyond the original prototype doesn’t help the insulation problem either.”

Pepper wrapped the heated blanket around him and led him to the couch. There were steaming mugs of coffee on the table, waiting. He lay down with his head in her lap, bundled up from neck to toes in the blanket. Dum-E and U settled their claws down on his side, and JARVIS sent a soothing warmth over Extremis. The pain in his chest was definitely there, but it was more bearable with Pepper and the bots surrounding him.

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~I can't believe Tony half comes out to readers in the crackiest fic in this series~~  
>  if you search "flying Christmas tree" you should get a video of exactly what I was picturing when I wrote the tree flying around.


End file.
